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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29529363">All Grown Up</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paradise_Found/pseuds/Paradise_Found'>Paradise_Found</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Bob's Burgers (Cartoon)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Chance Meetings, Childhood Friends, Childhood Sweethearts, F/M, Fluff, Meet-Cute, One Shot, Sister-Sister Relationship, ish, just kids who are now adults living through a pandemic, like we all are</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 17:53:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,635</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29529363</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paradise_Found/pseuds/Paradise_Found</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The kids are grown up, living in the middle of a pandemic, things happen.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Louise Belcher/Rudolph "Regular Sized Rudy" Steiblitz, Tina Belcher/Jimmy Pesto Jr.</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>All Grown Up</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Just a couple of things to note before we get started here, I’ve taken the liberties to make up pieces of a fictional world, they are:</p>
<p>Wharfingham - the big city. Louise moved there from Wonder Wharf for work.<br/>Biggsy - basically Google. A huge multinational technology conglomerate where Louise works.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It’s just like any other day for Louise. The same building, the same park, the same time, the same lunch. She’s been going through the motions for years now, cogs and gears grinding without purpose. She stares off into the blank of space, beyond the couples walking hand in hand, beyond the pond, beyond the clouds and the sun. With a fork in her hand, midair, tomato juice dripping down her thumb, landing on the grey asphalt underneath her feet, she thinks of locks. Locks that deter someone from entry, locks that protect, locks that seal. There are things she hides from everyone, things she locks in the deep of her consciousness, waiting to be set free by her, or—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Louise?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A voice calls her name. It takes her a second too long to come out of her daydream about locks. Who dares disturb her peace? She looks to the man standing more than six feet away from her. A plain black mask, she can only see eyes. Blue eyes with brown wavy hair tinged with strands of red, dressed in normal to below-average attire. Other than the carrying case of a guitar on his shoulder, he looks just like any other guy in the city; a mild disappointment. Mild being the operative word. She doesn’t think she knows this person and yet his voice brings her back to her childhood, to Wonder Wharf.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Louise? Louise Belcher?” the man asks again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes. Who are you?” Louise interrogates him with a cold tone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s me!” the man says. Big blue eyes wide in the eagerness to catch up. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Louise’s blood falls cold with dread. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The man takes off his mask with a quick chuckle. “Me! Regular sized Rudy!” He smiles.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mouth dry, she gulps an air of nothing. Rudy! She hasn’t seen him since elementary graduation. She moved to the big city a few years ago and has lost all sense of her past self, even the good parts. Moving to the big city does that to someone—she thinks to herself—the anonymity is both a blessing and a curse.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Rudy?” She stares at him in disbelief. His smile disarms the cold exterior of her words. She chokes on her own unapproachable demeanour. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes!” Rudy smiles again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s...hot now? His outward appearance means little to her. His smile though, that’s another thing entirely. It is the long-awaited rain falling on parched earth, cracked and loose from aridity, life could not survive in such a hostile environment until the soothing release of rain. His smile is the gentle nourishment needed for thriving flowers and reaching leaves. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A slap! She blushes from the unexpected attraction of a grown-up Rudy. She remembers a lot about him, all good things, only good memories. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re...tall.” She peers at him from his head to his toes, scanning all of him for her enjoyment at a later time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Rudy chuckles. “Well, I can’t stay regular sized all my life.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wh—what brings you to Wharfingham?” Her hand still hoving in the air with a pierced cherry tomato, she returns the bursting fruit to the uneaten box of her vegan salad.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Work. I play percussion for the orchestra,” he says. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That sounds great! It’s what you’ve always wanted to do.” A tang of bitterness shoots through her chest. She didn’t think childhood dreams were meant to be real.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m also working on an album. It’s not ready yet but almost.” Rudy smiles at her again and readjusts the guitar on his shoulder. She doesn’t remember him smiling this much when they were young. Perhaps she did not pay as much attention as she should have.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s...amazing.” She offers a smile, strained. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You? What brings you to the big city?” He moves a step closer to her. “Oh, almost forgot.” And takes a step back. The pandemic has changed so many things, things she doesn’t care about, except this.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Same. Work. Been here for five years.” She looks away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Where at?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Biggsy. I’m a systems analyst.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wow, that sounds so interesting!” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She answers with a shadow of a smile. His reply sounds like a lie you’d tell someone to ease their pain, but there is something else in his comment, though hard for her to believe; the glimmer of truth carried delicately on his breath. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, it’s been so good catching up with you. I don’t normally even go this way. I’m glad I chose to today.” Rudy looks at her like no time has passed, like nothing happened, like they’re nine again and back in Wonder Wharf.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m glad you did too. Maybe we should...” She trails off and takes out her cell phone. “It’s okay if you don’t want to.” An offer for him to decline, she doesn’t want to get hurt again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You were my best friend, of course I want your number, why wouldn’t I?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He tells her the number where he could be reached, as loudly and as quietly as he can, with a six feet distance between them. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>****</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The line on the other side rings. A man’s voice with a gentle lisp answers</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Bob’s Burgers.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Louise sighs. “Jimmy.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh hey, Louise.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“May I speak to my sister, please?” she says as pleasant and as callous as she can. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She hears the muffling of the receiver and mumbles from the exchange of voices, then pounding footsteps that sound like a full sprint to the phone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“LOUISE? CANCER OR COVID?” her sister yells through the phone. Louise can practically feel the spit on her face from Tina’s yell.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh my God, Tina! Calm down.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s BOTH? UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What’s wrong, babe?” Jimmy’s voice is heard in the background, still too loud for Louise.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Louise rolls her eyes at Jimmy’s pet name for Tina. Of course he couldn’t come up with a more original pet name, he has not a bone of originality in his body. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“LOUISE HAS CANCER AND COVID! UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.” Tina continues her groans of worry.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh wow, bad luck. That sucks,” says Jimmy casually.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What am I gonna tell Mom and Dad?” More groans. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Tell them I’m fine ‘cause I am, Tina. Take a deep breath and calm down,” Louise says through gritted teeth. This is why she doesn’t call home as often as she should.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You haven’t called us at all since the start of the pandemic, Louise, we’re worried about you. All alone in the big city, at least Gene has called us from Mallorca,” Tina says with a sniffle.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mallorca.” Louise rolls her eyes again, so far back that she almost faints from dizziness.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So, what’s wrong? You don’t call for no reason.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, I need a reason to call my sister? Maybe if I was dying you’d want to talk to me.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Louise, stop it. What’s wrong?” Tina can always tell when something isn’t right, Louise loves that about her sister, but mostly, she hated it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m...just…” Louise says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just…” Tina says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“...”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I miss home, okay? There, you happy?” A weight disappears from Louise’s heart. It was there all along and she never knew it existed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just now you miss home? Not like, five years ago?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Tina, do you want to talk to me or not? ‘Cause I can hang up real easy.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, no! Let’s talk! I can’t remember the last time you wanted to talk to me.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay well, I bumped into Rudy today. Remember? Regular sized Rudy?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I was eating my lunch in the park like I always do, and he saw me spacing out and said hi.” The image of Rudy flashed in her mind. Tall, blue and brown, smiles.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He plays percussion for the Wharfingham orchestra, and is also working on an album.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Uh-huh.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And...he’s like, doing everything he wanted to when he was a kid. And he looked so happy…” Louise quiets down.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Right.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m just...jealous.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just jealous.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes jealous, did you not hear me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Just</span>
  </em>
  <span> jealous?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh my God Tina, I swear I will hang up.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay okay! It just sounds like you still have a thing for him, that’s all.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A moment of silence.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Still? What do you mean, still?” Louise dips her words in simmering anger.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, you’ve always had a thing for Rudy.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Always had a thing?” Anger turns up a volume.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh yeah. You never realized? It was pretty obvious.” Tina chuckles.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“PRETTY OBVIOUS?” Anger on full blast. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Louise, it’s okay! You just saw an old flame today, everybody goes through that. Did you get his number at least?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“...Yeah I did.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, that’s great then! Good job!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>More silence.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So, is Rudy hot now?” Tina asks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The sisters talk for what seems like hours, but it was actually only ten more minutes. Louise hangs up and looks at her TV screen. It’s playing a show of some kind, she doesn’t remember ever turning it on. She looks down at the dinner in her hands, a greasy burger bought from a place that is supposed to be the next hottest thing in the city. She disagrees. She looks at the one bite she took from it with utter disgust.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Dad’s burgers are so much better,” she says to no one.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She sets her mostly uneaten burger down on the coffee table, mentally rewinding the events that occurred today. Rudy, then Tina. She loses the battle with her emotions and her lower lip starts to quiver, her chin soon follows suit. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A ding of her phone, a distraction. She rushes to it, suppressing the rawness within.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A text from Rudy, it reads:</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“It was so great to see you today, what a happy accident! Hope you have a good night.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Louise smiles and wipes away some moisture at the end of her eye. She replies:</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Same, Rudy Rudes. Let’s not make it an accident next time.” </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I have no hate for Jimmy, I just think older Louise as a character would find Jimmy to be *slightly* annoying. Also, cancer and covid are not things to be taken as jokes. This fic really needs some lightness and I thought Tina being overly worried about Louise would be fitting. This fic was quick and pleasurable to write. It got me out of my usual dark and steamy stories from the fandom I typically write in. This is my first fic for Bob’s Burgers. Thanks for reading.</p>
<p>Come visit me on <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/blog/introversiontherapy">my tumblr</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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